What I’m Watching: Transparent

Transparent: Season 3, Episode 6 “The Open Road” (B)

There’s a quality about this show that just makes it so hypnotic, and that serves it well on a regular basis even if it doesn’t lead to the most balanced or consistent installments. The most compelling part of this episode was the seemingly aimless road trip that Josh went on with Shea, in which they had the chance to bond and talk honestly about past relationships and being trans and then wandered around an old waterpark having the time of their lives. Josh’s comment about not being able to get her pregnant was admittedly stupid, and that made his subsequent reaction to her HIV diagnosis go over very poorly. His inability to picture a future with her or even entertain a conversation about where they might be headed wasn’t surprising given the primary reason for the dissolution of his relationship with Raquel, and now he’s back to being on his own as he heads towards Colton. Ali’s drug-induced game show hallucination was weird to say the least, and I think all she really needed was an escape from the suffocating and very selective affection of Leslie. I think she and Josh are meant to be close in a way that wouldn’t really be acceptable by society, and something tells me that he’s going to realize that eventually. Shelly’s brand has become a big joke at this point, but this episode got back to the seriousness of it as both Shelly and Sarah realized that Buzz was spending a lot of her money. He does seem to make her happy, so we’ll see if this is just a minor obstacle or something that really drives them apart.